


Queens of the Rock

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Mad Max Fury road, Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 07:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5959317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war there is much to be done, and the wives rule the rock with gentle certainty to Furiosa's fierce. </p><p>Sort of related to <a href="http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/123194503175/manticoreimaginary-angharad-never-walks-again">This</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queens of the Rock

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a gift for [ManticoreImaginary](http://manticoreimaginary.tumblr.com/). Sort of related to [This](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/123194503175/manticoreimaginary-angharad-never-walks-again)

The first thing Furiosa does, when they get back to the citadel, is order War Boys out, into what cars remain. Two large lorries are taken, and a host of Blackthumb Repair Boys, are led by one of the Vuvalini. They go back to the pass. Clear the way, and haul back the remains of the War Rig, and as many wrecked cars and bikes as they can. The War Boys on the other side, glad to see their brothers, help, some going back for the bodies left on the road they made through the desert.

Angharad is brought home, her body mutilated, empty of life, but home. The Valkyrie, Maddy, are brought home too, to be interred in stone beside Angharad. Lamps lit by their graves set golden light a-dancing over the green and growing things Capable and Furiosa and the Dag all leave. 

There is nothing left of Nux, or of Rictus, just two blackened bodies. The smaller one, found in the cab of the War Rig, is crumbled down, placed in a jerry can, and wedged between the women’s graves. All that marks him is written on one side, the word in white paint:  _Witnessed_.

The War Boys and War Pups visit it almost every day, bullets and washers set on Valkyrie’s tomb, and Maddy’s, and the green and growing on Angharad’s, or wisps of white cloth, cleaned by saved water from their rations. With Joe gone new mythology springs up - the sisters of war, the brother of sacrifice, and the Splendid Angharad, Mother of Life and Death.

(Capable hates that Angharad is called that still,  _splendid_ was what Joe had called her, reducing her to nothing but a description. When she hears the Pups and Boys talking of her as Splendid she corrects them.  _Beloved,_  she says.  _Her name means beloved, and she is that still._ The Boys and Pups call Angharad _Beloved_ after that.)

After a few days Corpus Colossus’ advice is heeded, but only in part. A count is made, names are listed, of the Wretched who still live beneath the rock. All of them, from young to old, are counted and tallied, and rationed water. It no longer flows freely, but it is given, daily.

It takes Capable time, before she is willing to give up her sketch of Angharad, her profile framed by the sun and the plants by the window of the Vault. She talks to a War Boy, one named Gasket, who finds the largest rubber washer Capable has ever seen, and a sheet of metal, and makes a frame for it. Capable paints, with careful fingers, delicate words on the black plastic. 

 _Angharad, Most Beloved._ She places it on Angharad’s grave, and places the wildflower she found in Dag’s gardens beside it.  _Mother of Life and Death_.

She is worshipped now, a goddess, and the wives are living goddesses to the War Boys still caught in the Cult. Occasionally War Pups, running on errands, pause by the graves, leave the bones of mice, or leaves from the gardens at Angharad's grave. Blackthumbs and Revheads leave washers, shiny and chrome, made shinier by the spray, on the graves of the Valkyrie and Maddy. Prayers are whispered, their fingers pale against the orange stone, not interlocking into the sign of the V8.

_Keep Forty safe, Beloved Angharad, don’t the let the tumours kill him._

_Guide my gun, Noble Valkyrie, let me die historic._

_Steer my wheels, Maddy of War._

Occasionally someone tops up the lanterns, and even more rarely someone will pour a little nitro into Nux’s can.

_Brother Nux, let me die right._

Capable knows she spends more time than she should, guarding the graves from someone who might desecrate them. Knows she spends more time listening to prayers meant for the dead. She files away each prayer, and remembers WD’s prayer for his brother, and has Forty’s tumours examined by Organic. She remembers Fuselage’s prayer, and has an older boy teach him to shoot. She remembers Axel’s words, and asks another teach him to drive on wet sand.

Sometimes it is the Wretched come to pray, murmured thanks, and gifts of flowers and fruit, offerings from their own rations. One day someone leaves a bowl of water, and it is never allowed to go dry. Sometimes War Pups run by, pause a moment in their errand, head bowed, leaving small traces of white paint on the orange stone, before running on.

Capable tells The Dag and she smiles. “Angharad will listen,” she says, and gives Capable a basket of small apples. “Give them to Piper and Spring? They fixed the winches.”

Capable takes the basket to the blackthumbs, and watches them tuck apples into pockets, only to take them out, and set them at the graves. Piper wears bits of plastic tubing around his fingers, and Spring wears a ring of suspension around his arm like a brace. Both cut two apples sideways, letting the seeds make stars, and leave them at the altars Angharad and Maddy. Piper slips off one tube from his finger, and pulls feathers from inside it, and pins them to Valkyrie’s grave with a rock.

 _Guide our hands_ , the boys pray,  _Let us serve the queens of the rock._

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated.


End file.
